Err, save games seem way farked now. I can load some saves, including old ones, but it seems to crash out most of the time when trying to load them.

Maybe it's just me.

Hmm, come to think of it, I think the culprit may be some old mods I forgot I'd installed.

This comment was edited on Nov 12, 22:31.

EXIT THE ANUS: THE PATH OF CACA!

I lol'd on that one dude. Good work!

They get 50 active quests!!!! Man, I feel robbed! This is definitely a small problem I have with WoW.

Hear hear! I really hate this pointless limit, especially since part of the challenge is finding as many complementary quests in any given area. There's no penalty for dropping a quest, since you can find the NPC who gave it to you again and pick it back up later. Also, there's so many random people you could meet on the way with a quest to meet someone in an area far away that you might not go to for a week or more. 50 sounds like a much more reasonable quest limit. Though I'm sure I'd manage to fill that up too.

Entering controls in this game is NO BETTER THAN BEFORE. It drives me up a fucking wall! Ok, how come I can have the mouse by default tilt copters, but I can't change that to making it turn (so I can use arrow keys to tilt), EVEN IF I CLEARED IT. And the whole "You already have this mapped" thing was moronic the first game around - they can't fix this? If I map a key to something else, CLEAR IT FROM WHERE IT WAS BEFORE. Like, y'know, every other game out there does? Is that so hard? Christ.

Happy Fileshack subscriber for about 2 years. Still happy.

I can't believe FilePlanet screwed the pooch on this one.

As someone who's been playing WoW for the last couple of weeks, and pretty fond of it, how does GW compare? I certainly wouldn't miss the monthly fee, though the always-online nature of WoW appeals to me. The screenshots of GW sure are scrumptious though, much more gritty looking than WoW. For those with experience in both, what's your opinion? Is one better, or are they each superior in certain aspects?

didn't this come out (on PC no less) years ago? And wasn't this an X-Box launch game?

Well, I realize the Killzone trailer is probably nothing but scripted animations as opposed to real gameplay, but it was shown with the connotation that you're looking at PS3-rendered footage, not CGI pre-renders. I know full well it was all scripted animation and the final game probably won't be that smooth, but even if it's close, it's a hell of a step up. At least it was a continuous first-person shot, and not a bunch of quick-cut, meaningless shite like the Devil May Cry 4 trailer.

Most importantly, imagine what you could do with Katamari Damacy on this hardware!

I'm sorry, but after witnessing Sony's PS3 trailer for Killzone 2, this just looks crappy. I'm afraid those PS3 trailers have ruined me for just about everything. I'm sure I'll be getting this, but Raven's known for turning in workmanlike games without much of a spark. Like if Ron Howard made videogames. Also, those mechs look like they were lifted from a mid-90's take-your-pic mech sim. The design work looks pretty uninspired in general. C'mon Raven!

Just who the heck IS Paula Oliveira? I mean, the gif's hilarious, but is there some story behind it? Google's got nuthin'. I too had the initial impression that it was the runaway bride chick.

Christ, can we put a bullet in the head of the word "extreme" and all its "hip" variants once and for all? LISTEN UP MARKETING ASSHOLES: FIND A NEW CATCH-WORD TO ABUSE.

That is all. Shoot me.

How nice of GameStop to "agree" to buy its only major competition (besides Wal-Mart and the like). One of my friends is a (soon-to-be-ex-)manager of a GameStop. He says their fortune is built upon the used games they buy for pennies and sell at huge mark-ups. He thinks well over half the games are "hot" - and the upper management couldn't care less. Could be the same deal at EB.

The rocket thing is probably quite on purpose - it stretches out the conflicts with the fliers a bit more, add a bit of strategy as you must keep grabbing rockets. There's always a supply box nearby once it comes down to it. Imagine if you could kill the flier that attacks you at the bridge from that first office, or could take out the first flier you see at Nova Prospekt before the second one shows up. The ammo in HL2 is purposefully limited - in "Raising the Bar" the designers discuss the desire to add more tension and fear, so they took out the typical "breadcrumbs" style health and ammo scattered everywhere. Hell, Gordon still has the ability to hold 10 large weapons at any time, I'm surprised they didn't go with the two/three weapon fad of late (ie your beloved Far Cry, or Halo).

As for the story, I do think a few nuggets more would have been nice - "Raising the Bar" lays out a lot more story elements, such as having Kleiner show you a slideshow illustrating how the aliens softened up the human race before the Combine take over in a 7-hour war. I suppose Valve felt in the end that it would be better to have the story told in a less direct manner. I think it gives the game a unique feel. You don't have objective screens before missions, you just go with the flow.

And as for the "gimmick" missions - I think the Antlion levels were hugely innovative, and the "gimmicks" provided great changes of pace. I liked Far Cry a lot, but it had nothing but standard gun battles with the enemy. And don't get me started on how ridiculously hard it got right near the end (volcano pit, anyone?). The final battle with the Doctor was one of the most frustrating, random FSP moments in memory. Let's start the player behind a desk, with four elite troops tossing grenades over it and a superpowered, rocket-launching mutant hopping freely around. Oh, and do all this in a small room, with poor cover.

GREAT!

I just wish there was a way to remove the "game scene" from the menu.

Just right-click HL2 in the Games menu, select Properties/Launch options, add +map_background none

It won't totally kill the initial load time, but it's definitely shorten it noticably.

It was laggy... but pretty darn fun. Grav gun was dominant, but not as dominant as you'd think, since everyone spawns with a machine gun, at least where I was playing. My favorite weapon is a large, metal desk. A nice touch is how kills are indicated by icons... with the icon for "knocking someone on their ass with a tossed object" being a flying toilet. That's class.

I can't say how much lag was the game / server / my computer struggling, but there's definitely promise. I bet the physics objects are a HUGE stress on the server. It's fun to play catch with objects... seems like the bigger they are, they harder they hit, but the easier they are to intercept, too. I tossed a bin at some dude, and he used the push blast to send it right back at me and knock my head off. Ace move.

Fear the toilet-kill.

It's still crap that you have to wait so long to "validate" to play SP every friggin' reboot. Could you imagine the noise if the game wasn't just so good? With all the money they make, you'd think Valve could afford enough servers to not shut down their forums every time a big event happened. Though perhaps that's more a "feature" to them than a flaw.

Oh noes! Not Team Rainbow! What are they, a secret fabulously-dressed anti-terrorist outfit mandated to protect the streets of the San Francisco's Castro district?

you know its FUCKIN WEIRD, lookin at handlebars by themselves as they turn.

He's kind of phrasing it like a jerk, but I agree with his point. It REALLY bothers me in modern games when you can't see your own feet. Tribes, UT2K4 and Halo2 (and I think even 1?) amongst other games let you see yourself. It's also strange that items you pick up with your hands just kinda float there - that's just plain weird. Reminded me of Deus Ex: IW. I don't think it would have killed Valve in five years of development to stick in driving hands.

Edit: and just to add, I think HL2 was friggin' amazing. Great action scenarios, and I LOVE the design aesthetic. Hands would just be a tiny plus. I agree that adding them for manipulating every object would take forever, but then, I thought the gravity gun was in there to make that point moot - I didn't know they'd let you pick up some objects manually until I actually played the game.


This comment was edited on Nov 25, 13:03.

HL2 is pretty darn diggity - however, although tossing bottles at old men is fun, why did they have to have items float in space in front of you? It looks kind of awkward. They couldn't render some hands? Reminds me too much of Deus Ex: Invisible War. Once you get the gravity gun it's much better. But I figured the point of the thing (besides letting you lift huge objects) was to avoid the issue of having to render hands. I'm still not a fan of the fact that you can't see your own body, even when you're plopped down in a vehicle. What is Gordon steering with? His mind? Master Chief can see his feet.

But other than that, the game's awesome. Makes my AthlonXP 2000+ really show its age, but is still playable.

Well, I got up at 7:30 and started Steam up, booted the now available HL2... and it's been "Unlocking Steam Files" for a half-hour. I've had time to get a shower, have breakfast, and take the dog out, and it's gotten from 20% to 31%.

Steam. Yeah.

Oh well, don't have time to play until I'm home from work anyways. Maybe I'll be 80 or 90% unlocked by then?

Oh my bad, it's at 32% by now. *ahem*

Y'know, this sounds kinda tasteless in a way, but also really original. However, I think they should avoid game-afying 9/11, that's a rather different situation from earthquakes and hurricanes. But besides that, I'll watch this one.